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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Hong Kong baby!

okay, before i get started on hong kong i want to say that just before we went to china, i got an ipad!! which proved invaluable in china for work. with an unpredictable boss it was easy to just whip out whatever he threw at me and say, why yes i have this project, why no, that wasnt in the design. and i looked cool too :) on like honky kong

these buildings are along the road from the airport welcoming you to a land of millions of people crammed into small spaces . there are endless skyscraper apartment blocks and each one of these small windows is an apartment where im sure more than one person live... and then you zoom out

its crazy

taxis were very old toyota somethings, felt like my toyota conquest and i felt right at home in the taxi. even with our luggage stuffed so full in the boot that it didnt shut and he simply tied it down. this was apparently common because we saw other cabs with lolling boots as well.

FYI: Hong Kong is an island and was a seperate (from china) british occupied country until the year.... and it is NOT part of china but seperate and VERY different to China. example you have to get a visa to go from HK to china but not into HK because as you will notice, every nationality of people on this earth live in HK. and most people speak english! which is awesome! (due to the british occupation factorium)

they have these suspension bridges all over. and about 3 underwater tunnels to the mainland. its quite something

sky-scraper apartments

the view from our first hotel. very nice hotel. note to self and all travellers staying in cool hotels: always take a costume with because as you will see, they will invariably have awesome pools to swim in!

an apple a day... recently in mainland china, an entire fake apple store was discovered, like fake fake, the staff even believed they were working for the real brand! there is also a fake ikea in guanzhou a city we visited

they really have their traffic sorted. because there are so many people, and everyone uses the train, people walk around a lot, so this maze of extensive people-walkways has been created and suspended over the traffic. double-decker traffic.

very big in HK

Ahh, guiness on the sidewalk

um..

all their scaffolding is built from bamboo, even on the really tall buildings, quite cool

yes, we went to starbucks. this is the view. it wasnt delicious but we could recognise what we were eating

blue berry muffins and coffee

it is just so big

the tradeshow where i discovered that everything is made in china. i mean EVERYTHING. if you thought something was made somewhere else... it wasnt. do not be that gullable consumer. you could buy anything in the world at these fairs. the eyes of my eyes are opened.

at the tradeshow

there was a building site right next to the exhibition

ben looking cool at the exhibition with his new dc cap and cool business card

cafe at the fair. we must have eaten here about 7 times!

by night it is much cooler (tempreture) and enjoyable

will you be my mobile softee?

these were yummy, first and only thing we bought off the street. they were like waffles in character!

this is not the fake apple shop!

driven to eat junk food

all restaurants also close at about 10 so its hard to find supper, the average dinner time in HK is around 6pm. almost every dinner, we were the last to leave and the staff were practically kicking us out!

these are the campo offices in hong kong

crazy signs

campo crew out for dinner

silvia, I and Nina at dinner

nina (fellow designer) and i

it wasnt me, it was that chinese guy...

taxis here are so cheap, it was great

how about this for a cool way to buy a subway ticket. you push the station you want to go and you pay for your ticket to that station! so practical

so many people in these stations. you do not want to be caught here at rush hour. one time we waited 4 trains until it was our turn to get on. unlike rome, the people here are polite in terms of, they will move out of your way and they take notice of other people around them, it was great

ha, guess what this is? its Nina's prized grape fruit weighing in at around 1 kg! comes from thailand

delicious foods tempt you to come inside..

the shopping markets of Mong Kok are something. each parallel street has a speciality, the nick names are like: sneaker street, cellphone street, lady street, this street is called.. fish street and shop after shop sells pet fish like this, its quite bizarre, even the big fish are in bags! we also saw cute puppies, all very exotic dog breeds and all very small

shame

lady street where you can buy all fakes or fong kongs

i wanted to buy everything!

theres just nothing else like it

this is an exit of the station

pictures are the universal language ;)

in soho for dinner

Soho

lots of halloween decor everywhere, they were really into it

Soho is a largish area of pubs, clubs and restaurants where the foreigners gather and it is pumping every night of the week. i met more south Africans in HK than i have met all year. this bar is called the Yorkshire pudding

to aid pedestrians on their long walkways, there are these escalators which move faster than usual and go in the direction of the people traffic so in the morning they go down and take everyone to work and in the evening they go up and take everyone home, pretty cool

hotel lobby

our hotel was a popular wedding venue and more than once we saw toys and dolls on the front of the wedding car

nighttime

wheres wally.. hint: the only one not moving at at 100km/hr. things move so quickly in HK and in china it is exactly the opposite

ben what a great photographer you are you are

campo store HK

getting festive with nina, Alessandra(designer) and roberto (boss)

you can also ferry across from mainland to HK island

guess where we took this.. you can win a prize!
okay thats only half of the pictures i wanted to show you, please stay tuned for part 2 the mainland china experiance with its very interesting cuisine, factories and massages! will post that soon